San Francisco and what to do in it

The pandemic made me forget just how myopically outdated Gen-X Oakland bias vs. SF was lol

― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Thursday, March 25, 2021 2:28 PM (six hours ago)

I was saying this in the context of the huge disparity in arts funding between San Francisco and Oakland, which I spent almost 20 years dealing with first hand. Maybe you know more about this topic than I do, I don't know. But considering you took my comment out of context, I'm guessing you are more interested in making a broader point about statewide economics in general, which is more significant than just the issue of arts funding. But the fact that you read my post as just being about "outdated" bias, makes me think you actually don't really know much about arts funding in the Bay Area. Not saying that makes me better than you or anything, just ... y'know, maybe chill on the condescending a bit?

Sort of want an explanation of that, tbh. The bias exists well beyond Gen X, too-- I don't know a single person who'd rather live in SF than Oakland, mostly because SF is filled with a population of the most oblivious douchebags who've ever stepped on soil.

I remember a few months ago, there was this glimmer of (Pandemic)hope, that basically went like this: all the techbraw douche-canoes can work on Zoom, so they're going to move back to Suburban Annapolis or the Hamptons or wherever they're from, and that rents will drop dramatically in San Francisco and then all the punks and artists and weirdos can move back and it'll be just like it was in 1986.

There may of sliver of that happening somewhere, but I think it's still hopelessly naive.

is the grant funded from money people paid to enter YBCA's Dream House scam?

lol

leeeeroy jenkins

San Francisco rent rebounds coming in hotter and sooner than we expected. With vaccine rollouts and office reopenings accelerating, the pendulum is starting to swing back. Full @ApartmentList rent data/report out next week... pic.twitter.com/p8lR2HNiZF

— Igor Popov (@IAPopov) March 26, 2021

the greatest trick the NIMBYs ever played was getting people to believe that tech employees were the problem

^^

is the grant funded from money people paid to enter YBCA's Dream House scam?

― akm, Friday, March 26, 2021 10:45 AM (one hour ago)

hahahah seriously, what is up with that Dream House thing?

i remember some reporting on it years ago that seemed to indicate that they could find no documentation of winners or where these houses were. but I don't know if there has been any other news about it. They do it rather reliably every year.

My understanding is that there's some for-profit scam company that does these all over the place, and YBCA fell for it because it's literally no investment for them.
They find a house that has been on the market for a really long time with no offers ("the dream house") and approach the seller about a guaranteed sale if they'll agree to a set price. If they sell enough tickets to buy the house and take a hefty fee, there's a big winner. If they don't sell enough tickets for the house, then you win other great prizes, like a bottle of cabernet franc or a deluxe weekend in Morro Bay, etc.

Not sure if anyone has ever won the house via the YBCA racket.

I visited Morro Bay recently for the first time, it was cool. Maybe I'll enter some time.

Also, I'd never driven through the area north of Santa Barbara before, around Los Olivos ... gorgeous like o_O

Morro Bay is great! Thank god it has a giant mothballed nuclear plant right on the water, or it would end up like Carmel or Monterey. A vestige of the old coastal California fishing towns.

"the greatest trick the NIMBYs ever played was getting people to believe that tech employees were the problem"

You write this assured that a bunch of rich idiot engineers with no social skills wanting to build an almost entirely white and rich monoculture based on shit we don't need isn't a problem.

mr choppy has room for all kinds of necks iirc

Yeah, I don't know about the problem, but if income inequality is a problem in the Bay Area, the unstable tech goldrush has contributed to it.

OTM.

Yes NIMBYism is now a problem. (My brother is working with a YIMBY group in Berkeley.) Yes income inequality is a problem.

Most of the discussions among techbros that I'm privy to seem to reach the conclusion that the best solution is to give a blank check to developers. To me that seems like the worst plan. For a long time the NIMBY mantra was "We don't want SF to turn into Manhattan." I think there's a valid point there. Until around the turn of the millennium, SF had a distinctive culture, which despite major injustices such as 'urban renewal' had reached a fairly sustainable balance between growth and preserving the city's character.

The massive surge in demand caused by the tech boom is what broke that model. It seems that now it's been exacerbated by AirBnB, investment properties, and marijuana legalization, but the root of the problem really is the ungodly pay in much of the tech industry, and the Bay Area in the space of a couple of decades having rapidly transforming to a global capital of tech. In my view there's no reason to assume that is sustainable, except that there's so much money locked up in local real estate that it creates its own political/financial momentum just to prop up the property values.

But what's this wealth tax everyone keeps talking about?

"My brother is working with a YIMBY group in Berkeley" is that with Daryl Owens (who I only know via twitter and nextdoor, occasionally)?

I've taken some very long walks around south berkeley this week. I've lived here since 1991. I'm glad to see more development but dismayed almost all of it is in my neighborhood and adjacent (ie: very south, very west berkeley). That entire area south of campus needs more apartments, more four plexes, etc. So much of it hasn't changed an iota since I moved here.

(by 'dismayed' I simply mean I think it should happen in other areas too, not just concentrated here; I'm pro development anywhere)

Not sure tbh, he's been really busy lately so we aren't in close touch. Plus I sort of tuned him out on social media right around Jan 5 when he was like "some of these Republicans standing up to Trump are kind of reasonable". Yeah the same guy who didn't give a damn when Stacey Abrams raised the issue of suppressing black votes with him last year? My brother T. is usually solidly progressive but he reads the Atlantic a little much for my tastes. (Our third cousin or something is also the first woman who went to the Citadel military academy in SC, she's the one who just flipped the House seat near Charleston back to red, and she briefly stood up to Trump then promptly backed down again. It's nonsensical imo.)

I can't speak to what areas they're focusing on building housing in now, it seems like in Oakland the development corridor is extending north along Telegraph and there's been some buildup along there in Berkeley already so it would make sense to continue expanding. I think the main goal should be that any development primarily focuses on providing genuinely affordable housing, particularly to marginalized populations.

Good luck with that.

I mean, I'm only writing that partially in jest, but given what's considered affordable, I don't see it happening...or I see the wait list being so long as to almost negate the impact of the affordable units.

Yes you're right that's the sad reality of course. I have another friend in desperate straights in Oakland, he's at retirement age and no chance of getting into subsidized housing.

You can't wait for private money to come in on affordable housing... oh they'll set aside two units in the back alley (that get 13 minutes of sunshine a day in the summer) but that's just so they can get the height limits waived.

I know people talk a lot of grief about the old housing projects, and there are some rough ones, but they're at least apartments and not pup tents.

I think commonly the issue is: where does the money come from to build affordable housing?

One answer is: market rate housing.

I spent years going to meetings in support of the Balboa Reservoir Project, which is this model. Lets see how it works.

As a tech worker since I showed up here twenty years ago, I argue that the problem isn't the salaries of the employees as much as the baseline profitability of the industry. Tax and regulate that folks.

Or you know, just have high income taxes!

When a small group of people can earn a huge amount of money, we should take a lot of it from them.

what thread was it where i sketched out a proposal to turn downtown office buildings into affordable efficiency housing units? I still think that idea has potential, as well as actually legalizing warehouse buildings for affordable live/work ... which good lord, it's been over 4 years and .... ugh.

That actually would be neat to have affordable residential downtown!

Personally though, I am sick of wfh and downtown office space is better for everyone than bayside landfill...

And by the way, CA state finances would be more stable of it came less exclusively from the income of folks like me.

in general, it's cheaper to renovate existing buildings than to build new ones.

I agree. I would like to argue, though, that while the popular press thinks everyone wants to work from home my experience is that lots of folks don't.

We should have way more residential downtown, but also its good to have offices where the infrastucture is.

I think unfortunately we just have too many single family homes.

This is happening across the Bay.

https://www.berkeleyside.com/2021/03/25/berkeley-single-family-zoning-city-council-general-plan-change

"the greatest trick the NIMBYs ever played was getting people to believe that tech employees were the problem"

You write this assured that a bunch of rich idiot engineers with no social skills wanting to build an almost entirely white and rich monoculture based on shit we don't need isn't a problem.

these dickheads would return to their natural habitats if the peninsula would ever allow more construction. it’s a regional issue and a state issue, and very SF to frame it as specifically driven by “new people”

so tech bros explain LA too? bc housing is just as out of control there.

"We don't want SF to turn into Manhattan."

well, i could afford to live in manhattan and i couldn't afford SF, so mission accomplished i guess.

There definitely is that element to it in SF and Berkeley (lol I love to lol at Berkeley) ... however, having lived in Oakland for 23 years, we have a lot of development, and when all the housing being built is market rate, and there are a significant number of people who make 50% or less of the AMI -- that market rate housing isn't gonna help those people. And developers here have the option of instead of having enough affordable units in their developments, they can pay "affordable housing impact fees" to the city, so in theory, the City has funds to build affordable housing ... but it doesn't get built. And I don't know if it's a specific-to-Oakland thing, but, they don't want to fund small affordable housing projects ... they're like, holding out for the perfect project, but meanwhile ...... we have some luxury Marriott hotel now on Telegraph and W. Grand ... and very little new affordable housing.

Basically, my feeling is, if the City can get over its rigidity and delusions of idk what and think, "you know, we're willing to make an effort to let you convert this small West Oakland warehouse that at one point was a storefront church into affordable housing for 5 people ... because that is 5 more people that have affordable housing than exists now" ... anyway, that's Oakland and it's predominantly the building department that's the block, not planning & zoning so much. San Francisco Planning Dept however ... whoa ... they are what you complain about re NIMBYism

Hey in the news this week, there's a plan here in SF to turn a bunch of the Stonestown mall parking lot into housing. Could be good. There's light rail right there. Article says the proportion of affordable housing is TBD tho.

Got the email from Kaiser today, requesting I make my vaccine appointment. April 5! Not sure which one I’m getting - I guess they just tell you when you show up?

That's my birthday! I bestow my royal favor. Go and be well.

Xpost, Kaiser. It’s whatever they have that day. I got Moderna.

I like it

I tried to find the DJ behind the Moscone Center vaccination site's piped-in music, and the story just kept getting better.

From "Sidewalk Talk" to "Sir Duke," here's S.F.'s upbeat vaccination soundtrack.

(Playlist included.)https://t.co/lfyZGtnJ6x

— Peter Hartlaub (@peterhartlaub) March 30, 2021

helpful info here for anyone looking for vaccine appointments

basically a compilation of sites & tips for navigating all the options

https://sfist.com/2021/03/30/advice-and-warnings-for-the-newly-almost-eligible-myturn-is-buggy-every-appointment-system-has-a-quirk/

ugh, this is so lame

The Lone Palm bar is now the No Palm Bar 😢@BrokeAssStuart @lucchesi @hknightsf pic.twitter.com/Qu4BgIHpl4

— Helmut the Schmidt (@sfhelmut) April 3, 2021

That's too bad. Always liked that bar.

Bob Wachter's COVID thread from yesterday was solid stuff re the likelihood of a fourth surge and how doesn't see it in the city. And certainly our stats remain pretty amazing.

1/ Covid (@UCSF) Chronicles, Day 383

Perhaps the most confusing time since the start of the pandemic – its easy to be overwhelmed. I’ll try to make sense of some of the key trends, particularly the “4th surge” & vaccines vs variants.

Bottom line: I’m still leaning optimistic.

— Bob Wachter (@Bob_Wachter) April 4, 2021

I just found out that Rainbow Grocery does curbside pickup!